Fish
over farms — again? We have get back to the table,
by Oregon State Senator Dennis Linthicum, District 28,
guest writer for H&N 4/30/17 "...On April 13,
the Klamath Tribes, who have senior instream rights,
notified OWRD of a call on the Wood, Sprague and
Williamson Rivers and tributaries, including Upper
Klamath Marsh...Riparian areas are thriving and current
flows are off the charts, making any talk of drought or
shortage simply ridiculous... If the tribes call water
during one of the highest water years on record, one can
safely wonder if their goal is fishing, hunting or other
heritage practices?..."

Tribal chairman defends water call, H&N
4/30/17.
"Ranchers in the upper basin have criticized the
call, claiming they will have a short window to irrigate
and water their cattle this spring, and they have no
water available the rest of the summer. Some believe
this call could put them out of business....“We're just
asking for justice,” Gentry said. “We're just trying to
hang onto what has been reserved by treaty despite what
has happened to us..."

KBC NOTE: The Klamath Tribal members voted to
terminate their tribe.
$220,647,000 was paid to the Klamath Tribes.
Regarding their votes, "There were return receipts
signed by each and every member of the Klamath tribe(Unconquered,
Uncontrolled, by Carrol Howe). "One Klamath Indian,
Edison Chiloquin...refused to accept the payment and
demanded land instead..."

Regulation headed for Wood River, H&N 4/28/17.
“Everybody above the Lower Williamson system, all the
way up to Sprague and Sycan and on up into the
Williamson itself are effectively regulated..."
"snowpack ...ranges anywhere from 130 to 146 percent (in
some areas) of average for the water year..."

OWRD responds to Tribes' call on (Klamath) water,
H&N, 4/28/17. "I’m
very disappointed that this call has been initiated by
the Klamath Tribes and validated by the Oregon Water
Resources Department at a time when our rivers are
literally running over their banks,” (State Rep. E.
Werner) Reschke said in a statement. “This decision
negatively impacts farmers and ranchers up and down the
basin and defies conventional logic. Oregonians lose
when we allow one group to exercise exorbitant control
over the rights of others..."

Water call should send message Basin needs a real
answer, Area needs congressional help for a long-term
plan, H&N View, 4/23/17. "...The
local community should accept the fact that an overall
settlement isn’t going to happen without a land
settlement with the Tribes. Yes, land for water. Accept
it and move on..." KBC
ANALYSIS: H&N got it right...it's not about fish,
it's "land for water". Tribes sold reservation. Tribes
will call on irrigation water (like happening in this
flood year) until they can get their land given back to
them again, and the Klamath hydroelectric dams
destroyed. Some call it 'blackmail.'

Tribes Issue Water Claim, Ranchers Fear the Worst,
H&N,4/23/17.
"In
April 2014, ranchers and the Tribes signed the Upper
Basin Comprehensive Agreement. The ranchers agreed to
retire 18,000 acres of land or 30,000 acre feet of water
and do riparian repair work on the rivers in exchange
for an allotment of water each year…At
the end of February, the Tribes indicated to the
ranchers they wanted to terminate the agreement..."

Oregon Rep Reschke seeks comments on three water bills, H&N, 3/21/17. "Installation
of measuring devices on streams can cost tens of
thousands of dollars. Daily maintenance can add up to
thousands of dollars in additional labor costs. The
annual reporting, and more often if the Oregon Water
Resources Department requests, of 'water amount, rate,
and duty' will add thousands of more dollars, annually,
in time and additional out-of-pocket expense. 'The
inclusion of a $500 civil penalty for each day of
violation of the act...' "

Top-notch Deception by Oregon State Senator Dennis Linthicum - District 28, News Ticker Opinion, Wallowa Valley Online 3/21/17. Linthicum
represents Jackson, Klamath, Lake, Deschutes and Crook
counties. "If a Democrat House member gets his way,
the Oregon Water Resources Department (OWRD) will load
stiff economic, land and water management problems right
into the lap of Oregon’s farmers, ranchers, cattle and
dairymen..."

Water decisions are not making any sense, by former
Klamath County Commissioner Tom Mallams H&N, 2/17/17. "The
irony of this is so obvious. The rivers are at
flood stage or very near it, and OWRD finally
lifts the tribal call on the water...This
applies to all uses on the listed water right, including
stock water, and domestic...surface water, (rivers,
creeks and springs), and ground water, (wells). Most all
of the rights list irrigation as a listed use." "...A
single judge and our federal government send extra water
down the Klamath River for fish in the middle of a
flood. You would certainly think a flood event would
contain enough water for any fish needs, including flush
or pulse flows. It is absolutely necessary that logic
and true science drive the decisions critical to the
survival of our local economies..."

Klamath River floods as Jerry Brown set to tear down
dams,Breitbart, posted to KBC 2/18/17.
"The un-noticed Klamath River, even with its dam system
still in place, is expected to flood and potentially
cause serious damage to the North Coast when the rains
hit. If four of the seven dams were already torn down,
the flood and destruction from the Klamath River would
likely have been be epic."

Pulse flow curbed in wake of downstream concerns,
H&N, posted to KBC 2/18/17. KBC note: Tribes and
environmental groups sought court order to take 100,000
acre feet of water from Klamath Irrigator storage to
wash a parasite out of the river on an already high
water year. Tribes saw their homes might get wet.
"In
the Happy Camp area, where river water levels were
reaching the highway, residents were getting nervous...Due
to the danger looming downstream and terribly high water
levels just from the run-off from the river and side
hills, we decided to scale back."

! Water
call made on the Williamson, H&N
11/23/16. "Water
users in the upper Klamath Basin have received shutoff
notices for surface water use after the Klamath Tribes
called on their water rights earlier this month....Water
users along the Williamson and its tributaries, as well
as the Klamath Marsh, received notices directing them to
cease stock and domestic use of surface water until
February...this should only affect those diverting water
from streams and rivers and said wells, which depend on
ground water, are not affected."

Irrigators wrangle over Klamath Water Users
membership, H&N 1/15/16.
"The 2016 KID annual budget states the
cost for KID irrigators is $238,168...'I
can’t say I’m against the Water Users, but I
can say that I’m not for them, in the fact
that they don’t include all of Klamath
County. Every adjudicated, irrigated acre in
Klamath County should be included,' said
Oxley. 'If it’s not good for everybody, it’s
not good.' Horsely agreed that Water Users
should be open to more of the county’s
farmers."

Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement Terminated
on 12/31/15.
"The Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement
(KHSA) and Upper Klamath Basin Comprehensive
Agreement (UKBCA) are still in effect, they did
not terminate with the KBRA, but they also
require federal authorization legislation and
their implementation is interdependent with the
now-terminated KBRA,"
by Ed Sheets, Klamath agreements facilitator.

Water district board members meet Friday,
H&N 1/6/16. Friday at 1 pm in Merrill, Klamath
Basin irrigators meet to find solutions, "to
bring community back together.""Under
the (controversial KBRA) agreement, Klamath
Project irrigators were slated to receive a
substantial block of irrigation water from Upper
Klamath Lake each year if certain
instream flows were met in the lake’s
tributaries..."

Water district board members meet Friday,
H&N 1/6/16. Friday at 1 pm in Merrill, Klamath
Basin irrigators meet to find solutions, "to
bring community back together.""Under
the (controversial KBRA) agreement, Klamath
Project irrigators were slated to receive a
substantial block of irrigation water from Upper
Klamath Lake each year if certain
instream flows were met in the lake’s
tributaries..."

KID / Klamath Irrigation District leaves
(Klamath) water users group, H&N posted to
KBC 11/18/15. "Board member Brent Cheyne said
KID irrigators pay Water Users about $238,000
per year...“It seems to me that some of the
political goals of the Water Users contradicts
what we are trying to do,” Bair said...."the
money being paid to Water Users should instead
be dedicated to paying for the multi-million
dollar C Canal flume replacement. The flume
delivers irrigation water to roughly 22,000
cropland acres in the Klamath Project."

County, state tussle over water regulations;
public
works director to sit on water advisory,
H&N, posted to KBC 9/20/14. <
Klamath Falls City Councilman Bill Adams
speaks about his frustrations with a
proposed Oregon Water Resources Department
rule on Thursday during a question and
answer session at Oregon Tech."Klamath
County Commissioner Tom Mallams, also an
irrigator, spoke in opposition to the
proposed rule change. 'This is what I feel
is nothing more than trying to put pressure
on everybody trying to agree to a settlement
that’s very iffy, lacks a lot of
support...There is some support … because
they have been pushed into a corner, and a
gun to their head, as far as I’m concerned,
by Oregon Water Resources and our federal
government. Water resources in the past has
been the champion for irrigated
agriculture...I feel they’re one of our
worst enemies, and that’s very
disheartening.' Mallams also read a
statement from State Rep. Gail Whitsett on
her behalf: 'We find no viable reason or
justification for this permanent rule to
apply only to the Klamath River Watershed in
Klamath County,' read the statement."

Klamath salmon in danger; additional
flows intended to prevent fish die-off,
H&N, posted to KBC 9/21/14. "The
Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) began releasing
additional flows from Trinity Reservoir via
the Lewiston Dam Tuesday....We
must, however, take all reasonable measures
to prevent a recurrence of the fish losses
experienced in 2002" KBC NOTE:
Water was shut off to Klamath Basin family
farms the summer of 2001. After irrigation
was restored to irrigators in later, tribes,
U.S. Dept of Fish and Game, and
environmental groups focused on obliterating
farming in the Klamath Basin, blamed Klamath
Farmers for fish dying in 2002, 170 miles
downstream.
Fish
Scientist David Vogel (see #'s 19, 22,
23 and 29) explained why sending high flows
of warm water from Iron Gate dam was lethal
for salmon in the already warm river.
According to a Scientist conference in
Klamath Falls in 2004, effects of the 2002,
500,000-acre Biscuit Fire smoke were never
studied in relation to fish dying that fall.
Neither were considered effects of drainoff
from
drug labs on the Klamath River.

Agency reconsidering water for Klamath
salmon, H&N 8/16/14. "Tribal
members were going to Sacramento on Tuesday
to hold a vigil outside Bureau offices, she
said. Since the 1960s, some water from the
Trinity has been pumped over the mountains
to the Central Valley of California for
irrigation. Sierztutowski said some of those
irrigation districts have been denied water
this year due to the drought."

BOR, PacifiCorp reach agreement on reservoir
releases H&N,
posted to KBC 8/16/14. "According
to KWAPA Executive Director Hollie Cannon,
the combination of consecutive drought years
and new rules in place to protect endangered
fish in the Klamath watershed means
irrigators are given less surface water,
forcing them to turn to groundwater..."

Oregon's
expansion of regulations of surface and
groundwater use,
by Senator Doug Whitsett
8/13/14. "What the Department is not making clear to the
public is that their proposed permanent rules
make substantial and critical changes to the
existing emergency rule. The rule being proposed
extends the Department’s authority beyond its
regulation of surface-water, to include the
regulation of groundwater under the preferential
use of water for human and stock-water during
drought. This rule appears to be another attempt by the Department to use its rule making powers to extend its authority to regulate surface water under the Klamath River Adjudication, to include the regulation of groundwater."

On April 21, the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) jointly
released a new proposed rule –
Definition of Waters of the U.S. Under
the Clean Water Act – that would
amend the definition of “waters of the
U.S.” and expand the range of waters
that fall under federal jurisdiction.
The proposed rule, published in the
Federal Register, is open for public
comment for 90 days, until July 21,
2014.

Why Willamette Valley farmers should watch
Klamath Falls' water rights fight, Statesman
Journal, posted to KBC 5/10/14. "The
agency identified 130 wells (including
Mallams) that could interfere with surface
water sources, meaning he and other farmers
could lose both sources of water this
summer. 'You virtually cannot prove there
isn’t interference because of the way they
did the modeling,' Mallams said. 'I am
considered guilty unless I prove myself
innocent and I cannot prove myself
innocent.'For
Whitsett, that means the OWRD can do the
same thing to any watershed in Oregon."

Zero acre-feet of water;
East Side Klamath Project irrigators to see
little or no water; idling funds also are in
short supply,
H&N 4/15/14. "Moxley
said the newly designed pivots can reduce
his irrigation water use up to 50 percent.
But last week, the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR)
announced that irrigators, who rely on water
supplies from Clear Lake Reservoir, will get
zero acre-feet for the 2014 irrigation
season." KBC NOTE:When Klamath
Reclamation Project was built, Clear Lake
was a meadow. Suckers do not live in
meadows. To create farmland, water was
stored in Clear Lake (meadow) to so it could
be used for irrigation if needed. The U.S.
government made it into a bird refuge and
decided to create habitat for suckers who
historically did not live in this meadow,
mandating lake levels and denying access in
most of that area to the public.

Water Interference Bill, legislative update
by Oregon Rep Gail Whitsett, posted to
KBC 2/21/14. "....Over
130 Klamath Basin farmers and ranchers have
been threatened by the OWRD to have their
irrigation ground water wells shut down as
soon as April 2014. This is in addition to
the same ranches having all of their surface
water called on, and shut off, by the
Klamath Tribes (as the newly adjudicated
senior water right holder) and the OWRD in
2013. The adjudication provides absolutely
no direct statutory control over ground
water, but the OWRD is trying to tie the two
water sources (ground and surface) together
in an attempt to gain control over all of
the ranch and farm lands (through their
water) in certain areas of the Basin,
without going through the process of
defining a “Critical Groundwater Area”. OWRD
does not want to go through this process as
there really is not a shortage of ground
water in this region..."

* The Oregon
Water Resources Department is no longer a friend of agriculture 8/1/13 by Senator Doug Whitsett:
"More
than 250 water users holding Allottee and Walton water rights dating to 1864
are being forced to turn off their irrigation water...The Department’s final
determination gave the Tribes such a huge amount of water that virtually no
additional water will be available for irrigation in a normal year..."

Crater Lake shutoff
possible, H&N 6/30/13.
"Any impacts to Crater Lake could be far-reaching economically. In 2011,
visitors contributed $34.6 million to nearby communities, said Jeff Olson,
National Park Service spokesman, and 549 area jobs were supported...Calls
for water were made June 10 by the most senior water rights holders: Klamath
Project farmers and the Klamath Tribes."

Klamath Tribes: Support the KBRA in exchange for water talks, Capital
Press 6/20/13. "The leader of the Klamath Tribes told a U.S. Senate
committee June 20 that ranchers facing water shutoffs in the Upper Klamath
Basin would have to agree to provisions of a three-year-old basin
restoration agreement to negotiate more water from the tribes." KBC
Note:
Klamath Tribe is presently denying irrigation water to off-Project
Klamath irrigators supposedly for the sacred sucker fish. However, if
the irrigators agree to supporting the KBRA (which destroys 4 hydro dams on
the Klamath River, gifts land to the tribes that they previously sold to
build a sovereign land base, destroys a fish hatchery producing millions of
salmon, and downsizes agriculture), then the tribe will allow off Project
irrigators to discuss terms to get their water back.

Farmers,
ranchers in the Langell Valley familiar with water crises,
H&N, posted to KBC 8/16/12. "Under
federally-mandated U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biological opinions, a
minimum lake level is required to support the short-nose sucker, an
endangered fish."
(KBC NOTE: There is a mandatory lake level in Clear Lake for
"endangered" suckers. Before the Klamath Project was built, Clear Lake
was a meadow. The reservoir was built to evaporate water so farmers
could farm. The Project also pumped water out of this closed basin into
Klamath River, water which historically did not reach the river. The
federal government now demands a higher-than-historical lake level for
salmon because of the ESA / Endangered Species Act. )

Draft IWRS / Integrated Water
Resource Strategy 6/22/12IWRS Executive
Summary 6/22/12 "The Oregon Water Resources Commission is scheduled
to adopted the Integrated Water Resources Strategy at their August 2 meeting.
The meeting is being held at the Water Resources Dept Conference Room 124 725
Summer St NE in Salem. The discussion is scheduled to begin at 1:00 pm.
Water for Life does not support adoption of the
Strategy. It is our position that it is not a strategy but an opinion piece and
policy statement. The link to the complete document is below. You are encouraged
to attend the meeting and let the Commission know your thoughts on the
document."
Helen Moore, Executive Director (503) 375-6003

Oregon Integrated Water Resources Strategy, by Oregon Senator Doug Whitsett 5/31/12. "...IWRS advisory committee... appear to have placed little emphasis on the development of additional storage for current and expanded agricultural use. Implementation of those public policies can only serve to diminish the supply of water available for irrigation."

Latest water level drop at Copco, by Robert Davis, 5/14/12. "NMFS requested a higher than normal water flow out of Irongate, above 3000 cfs. Flows provided from Klamath Lake were about 2750 cfs. ...The shortage was made up from Copco Lake resulting in a drop in lake level of about 7 feet...It is evident there was no monitoring of the process to assure any request for change would not cause damage or hardship for the other sections of the project."

The Big Picture Part I,
by Marcia
Armstrong, Siskiyou County Supervisor,
posted to KBC 5/11/11. "I
was struck by a sentence in the recent
“chinook expert panel” report commissioned
for the dam removal studies. It said:
“Furthermore, the refuges should be managed
for fish and wildlife versus agriculture if
the basin management objective is
rehabilitation of fish species.” Just when
did the citizens of
SiskiyouCounty agree to an over-riding regional
“management objective”of fish
rehabilitation? Just who signed the orders
relegating us to serfdom, putting our
private property and livelihoods in the
service of fish production and those who
harvest fish? What happened to our own
economic priorities – to the development of
our local natural resources to create food,
fiber and mineral products for the benefit
of our families, communities and nation."

Managing Klamath River complicated; recent flow change
offers an example, H&N
editorial, posted to KBC 2/15/11. (KBC NOTE: last year
more than 1/2 Klamath irrigators received no irrigation
water. This year the federal agencies sent approximately
20,000 acre feet of water into the ocean.) "Greg
Addington, executive director for the Klamath Basin Water
Users Association, which represents water users on the five
irrigation districts on the 240,000-acre federal project,
said the lake’s 'in good shape now. That’s a lot of water
(going downriver), but I don’t feel like the lake is in
jeopardy of not filling because of it.' ”

River flows to increase for fish,
H&N, posted to KBC 2/10/11. "Flows
will be three times their current cubic feet per second rate, going from 1,600
cfs to 5,000 cfs for six hours, and then decreasing to 1,300 cfs."

Rationing
signals grim times for water out West,
by Dan Keppen, Executive Director of
Family Farm Alliance, 2/29/08, H&N.
"...government
regulations and court-ordered directives
favoring fish over farmers will put the
screws to San Joaquin communities this
summer. Because farmland within
Westlands Water District — ground zero
in the current crisis — accounts for 20
percent of the $5 billion agricultural
production of Fresno County (the
nation’s No. 1 farm county), the
potential economic impacts will dwarf
the 2001 Klamath crisis."

Columbia River:
Salmon win in this dam
legal battle, Capital Press editorial 4/25/08. "It's a fact that
some environmental groups won't be happy until every dam is removed from
every salmon stream and river in the West. Whether that's practical is,
for them, not a concern. They simply don't seem to be willing to accept
any alternatives. For them, it's an all-or-nothing proposition."

Growth threatens
water, H&N 3/1/07. "Addington
said irrigators are frustrated that the matrix gives them less
water in average-water years than in low-water years."

Recommendation for Big
Look Task Force;
Water, Paper or Planning?
by Tamra Mabbott, Umatilla County Planning Director,October,
2006Oregon's water
management plan, Oregon State Senator Doug Whitsett
responds to above recommendation, 11/28/06 "Her
(Mabbott's) proposals, taken as a
whole, represent the largest expansion of Oregon’s
police powers since the 1973 passage of Senate
Bill 100, the land use planning statute. Six of
her specific policy proposals appear to oppose the
interests of agriculture and the interests of many
municipalities."

Project
aims to mend lake shore, H&N, posted to KBC 7/3/06 "Mark
Buettner, a fisheries biologist for FWS, acknowledged the lake
level does not currently meet the biological opinion's
requirement. But he said the agency has OK'd the temporary
discrepancy, which was due to circumstances beyond Reclamation's
control. Analyses by Reclamation and FWS conclude the current
level will provide adequate sucker habitat this year."

Whitsett has good
reason to be wary, Herald and News editorial 6/8/05. "Rural
Oregon should be afraid of such things because they put weapons in the
hands of urban residents who have little knowledge about such things as
agriculture and responsible use of resources."

Officials push for
water regulation, The Idaho Statesman, posted
7/22/03
regarding Water 2025. "John
Keys, commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation, the
agency which supplies water to more than 30 million
people in 17 Western states, said Idaho´s water bank
is one of the innovative ways states can shift water
from one use to another to meet new demands. A water
bank is a brokerage service that allows farmers and
others to lease their surplus water to others."The
water market needs to be regulated, said former U.S.
Sen. James McClure, so rich outside interests cannot
overwhelm the social and economic structure of a
community. “There is no question Idaho could look
like Owens Valley if we allowed California to buy
our water,” McClure said."

Water 2025:
The Coming War on the Western Frontier, 7/11/03,
The Sierra Times."On
April 6, 2001, flawed science forced the federal
shut off of over 100,000 acre-feet daily irrigation
water to over 1400 farms in the Upper Klamath Basin
south of Klamath Falls, Oregon ' to save the sucker
fish and coho salmon'".

Water 2005 conference spawns feud with Yuroks,
H&N July 11, 2003 AP.H&N July 11, 2003 AP. "But
(Yurok tribe chairperson Susan) Masten said she's
skeptical, and her tribe, with 90 percent poverty
and 70 percent unemployment, is dependent on the
river for its livelihood." While accusing
Klamath Project of ruining the livelihood of her
tribe, she forgets to mention that last year's run
of fish was the 3rd highest run, there were so many
fish the take limit was raised, the price was
lowered, and they had trouble selling them.
KBC

State Rips Norton on Water, July 10, 2003, The
Sacramento Bee."We have grown to expect this sort
of partisan whining from Mary, and that is the way
it is," said (assistant Interior Secretary Bennett)
Raley, a water lawyer from Colorado. "I find it
humorous that, in her zeal to make this a partisan
issue, Mary is blaming the Bush administration that
the California delegation doesn't have a consensus."
(State Resources Secretary Mary Nichols is the
woman who blamed the Klamath Project for the dead
Trinity-river fish 200 miles from Klamath Project
which contributes 2% of the watershed. This
was before the water was tested, before any
scientific studies were done, and before they even
knew that these were not Klamath River fish. KBC)

Norton's surprising stance, by Stuart
Leavenworth --The Sacramento Bee, July 7, 2003
"Called Water 2025, Norton's water blueprint
takes a few pages out of the environmentalist
playbook: "It calls for more conservation of
supplies, more banking of groundwater and more water
trading between farms and cities, instead of new
dams."